{"id":628,"date":"2013-02-09T09:46:58","date_gmt":"2013-02-09T16:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/?p=628"},"modified":"2013-02-09T09:46:58","modified_gmt":"2013-02-09T16:46:58","slug":"bc-civil-liberties-association-wades-in-on-teacher-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/2013\/02\/09\/bc-civil-liberties-association-wades-in-on-teacher-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"BC Civil Liberties Association wades in on teacher controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Vancouver Sun<\/em>, Zoe McKnight, February 4, 2013<\/a> — The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is accusing the Prince Rupert school board of infringing on teachers’ freedom of speech by banning the wearing of t-shirts printed with those exact Charter rights.<\/p>\n

Three teachers in School District 52 were told last Monday to remove or cover their black t-shirts emblazoned with wording from Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights, which includes the right to freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.<\/p>\n

“The school district’s decision to ban free speech about free speech reminds us of a badly-written comedy sketch. But this isn’t an Air Farce skit \u2014 it’s a troubling violation of teachers’ constitutional right to free expression,” BCCLA president Lindsay Lyster said, adding that schools have an obligation to encourage open discussion.<\/p>\n

In an open letter to chair Tina Last and other board members, Lyster asks the school district to rescind the ban on the t-shirts, which were part of a protest organized last week by the B.C. teachers’ union to mark the 11th anniversary of legislation stripping teachers’ rights to bargain class size and composition.<\/p>\n

The school board said the t-shirts were a form of political messaging, which is against the rules.<\/p>\n

Read more: Vancouver Sun<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vancouver Sun, Zoe McKnight, February 4, 2013 — The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is accusing the Prince Rupert school board of infringing on teachers’ freedom of speech by banning the wearing of t-shirts printed with those exact Charter rights. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406501,4182,555,2262,2264,2266,2275],"tags":[1469,1063364,1063374,1063375,1063377,2276],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc-education","category-civil-liberties","category-free-speech","category-k-12-issues","category-legal-issues","category-protests","category-unions","tag-bctf","tag-free-speech","tag-k-12-issues","tag-legal-issues","tag-protests","tag-working-conditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":630,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}